Book of the Month: May

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My best book for the month of May is Jennifer Robson's The Gown.  The Gown is the story of how Queen Elizabeth II's wedding dress was designed and sewn.  While it had a slow start this book was mesmerizing once it got started.  The excitement that was in the air in Britain when Elizabeth's engagement to Phillip was announced was evident to the reader.  Coming out of the awful era of WWII the news of this wedding excited people, probably because it was good news.  Any good news may have done the trick but this was Elizabeth and Phillips's news.  The story primarily follows two embroiderers who worked on the gown.  There was a parallel plot from the current era that was interesting but not as compelling.  It was used, though, to help tell the story of the embroiderers.  Until I read this book I was not aware that Elizabeth's dress was packed full of embroidery.  I had seen pictures of her dress in the past and had seen rows of something in the dress but never would have guessed that it was silk embroidery.  I would love to see it now in the museum that it is housed in.  I understand, however, that the embroidery did not stand up to time as the silk material it was sewn to was not the best for having embroidery added to it.  However, the Queen's mother insisted on a particular type of silk for the dress.

Jane

Jane is a modern day version of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre told in a graphic novel format. The writer has changed Bronte's storyline but the two main characters Jane and her love Rochester are present.

The book summary from the back cover blurb reads:  "Growing up in an unhappy family in a small New England town, Jane dreamed of escaping to New York City to study art and live a life of independent adventure. Soon after arriving, she takes a job as a nanny for a mysterious, powerful businessman, Rochester, and his lovable but lonely daughter Adele, in a lavish apartment filled with unsettling secrets. Jane soon finds herself drawn into a world of intrigue, danger and romance that takes her far beyond her childhood dreams."

This is a delightful, fast paced read. However, if you're looking for Jane Eyre in a comic you will be disappointed. The author has changed the plot significantly. I think it is a cute book but the advertisement of the book as a modern day Jane Eyre is deceptive. The only thing it has in common with the old classic is Jane's family background and that she loves a man named Rochester.

The artwork is beautiful. Ramon Perez did the illustrations and Irma Kniivila did the coloring with her watercolor washes. The pages are primarily blue with gold highlights but many are orange with gold highlights or olive green with the gold. The effects are striking. I think the art makes this book. While it has interesting characters and a good plot, without these drawings I don't think the book would be as engaging.

I enjoyed this book immensely.  It's light charm was a perfect choice for the park on the first warm, sunny day of the season that I chose to read it on.

5 out of 5 stars.

Where We Live

Where We Live is an anthology of stories of the 2017 Las Vegas music concert mass shooting told in a graphic novel format. The shooting resulted in 58 deaths and injured more than 500 people.  Where We Live is an unusual graphic novel as it has both fictionalized cartoons and cartoons from eyewitnesses.  Several themes are discussed such as gun control, a compassionate society, the stigma of mental health, and how communities persevere after a tragedy.

All of the 90 cartoonists used bold, vivid colors in their comic strips which was what initially made me interested in the book at my local bookstore. After reading the back cover blurb describing the book I decided that I had to buy it.

After beginning to read, I had to put the book down several times because the darkness of the stories was overwhelming. There were many eyewitness accounts in the book's 331 pages. They were riveting but the fear and grief expressed in them consumed my spirit because the darkness in each of the stories never seemed to end for me while I was reading. Each comic strip exuded so much emotion that it was hard to handle. One or two short essays on the beginnings of guns in the U. S. is included and I learned a few facts from them. However, even the essays exuded negative emotions.

Where We Live is a difficult read. I can understand why the editor, Will Dennis, included all of these comic strips  in the book. He is from Las Vegas. If you are from Las Vegas, the fear and grief is one you share with the cartoonists. For me, who doesn't live there, it seemed to be over kill. While I understand this is an anthology of comic strips its impact on me was one of horror, too much horror to be affected by the social commentary. It meant nothing to me. All I felt was the fear of the people who were present at the shooting. I do not know if that was the editor's intention or whether this book was written for the people of Las Vegas.

4 out of 5 stars.

The Mueller Report

I was at Barnes and Noble earlier in the week and found The Mueller Report for sale in two formats.  One was published by the Washington Post newspaper and the other one was published by Skyhorse Publishing.

There are slight differences between the two books.  Both contain the full redacted version of the report. How that redaction is shown differs in each book.


The Washington Post version has articles in the beginning of the book as well as the indictments of the people who were indicted by the Mueller Team in the back of the book. The other version only has an article by attorney Alan Dershowitz in the front of the book. The redactions in the Skyhorse version are shown only with [redaction] in between sentences. The Post version has page after page of blackened out paragraphs for the redactions. This makes the redactions seem more sinister than what we have been told they are about, i.e., national security matters.

The Mueller Report has citations on each page showing where information came from. For example, information may have come from an interview with Donald Trump, Jr. on a particular date. In the Post version of the Report the citations are on each page. The Skyhorse version has them all at the back of the book. Clearly, the Post version is a better read because of the placement of these citations.  Both books have Attorney General William Barr's letter to Congress wherein he summarized the Report.

Which version should you choose?  I did not want to be influenced by any articles before reading the actual report itself so I didn't read them initially. I wanted to form my own beliefs. If you have watched cable news then you know that Alan Dershowitz loves Trump and the Washington Post doesn't. If you lean right or left politically you may want to make your choice that way. The Washington Post version is easier to understand because the citations from where information came from are on the same page where the information is stated. The Post version is much larger but is only $3 more expensive.

I am not going to state what I believe about the Report, Barr's summary or the articles. My only recommendation is that you read the Mueller Report itself before reading the Barr summary or any articles. Form your own conclusions before reading about someone else's conclusions. Whichever one you choose it will be a collector's item in decades to come. My copies are already on the bookshelf next to The Pentagon Papers.

The Enemies of Versailles

The Enemies of Versailles is the final book in the salacious Mistresses of Versailles trilogy by Sally Christie. Louis XV has spent a few years getting to know his unmarried daughters since his last mistress died, the Marquise de Pompadour. He has not had much interest in women for four years. He was devastated by the death of the Marquise. However, four years and 100+ pages later he meets thirty year old Jeanne Becu, later known as Madame du Barry, and falls in love.

This love affair is different from Louis' earlier mistresses. I am assuming it is due to him now being 60 years old. He has a hard time getting her installed at Versailles because a woman already presented at Court must present her. No one will. Jeanne grew up in a brothel and worked as a prostitute herself later in life. The aristocracy will not accept her as the King's mistress. I see him as not trying that hard to help her since he gets the opportunity to sleep with her daily anyway. He does not seem as enamored with her as he was with his earlier mistresses or she would have had a bedroom next to his at Versailles in no time.  Eventually she gets a home an hour outside of Versailles, with travel time Louis would not have been able to stand with his prior mistresses. He was too eager for them.

There is nothing steamy in this novel as there was in the first two novels of the trilogy. It is all about Court intrigue with the spinster daughters plotting silliness and the grandson, Louis XVI, not being able to consummate his marriage.  The book was not interesting. I expected to devour it as I had with the first two books but it took me two weeks to read it. What a disappointment!

The virginity of the daughters and the dauphine, Marie Antoinette, was written in a more titillating manner than the sections where Jeanne was with Louis in the bedroom.  I thought it odd at first but then realized that these women were the enemies of Jeanne and perhaps the book was really about them, the enemies of Versailles. In a trilogy titled the Mistress of Versailles you would expect the books to be about the mistresses but maybe I got this one wrong. There were, in fact, more scenes written about Louis' family than about his mistress. It all ended with the French Revolution and the guillotine which I also thought was odd since the trilogy was about Louis XV.

This was a most unsatisfying end to the trilogy. It might be because the truth about Louis' last relationship was boring and the author didn't have much to work with but it just didn't sizzle.

3 out of 5 stars.

The Gown

I was supposed to receive an advanced review copy of The Gown from the publisher in October, 2018 through the Early Reviewer's Program at Librarything but, sadly, it never arrived in the mail. I took the book out of my local library as soon as it hit the shelves. The Gown is the story of Queen Elizabeth II's wedding gown.

The story begins by introducing the characters who work for Thomas Hartnell, the designer of the wedding gown as well as the introduction of a parallel plot. However, this introduction was 140 pages long. 140 pages out of a 370 page book is a long time to wait before a reader gets to the point of a book, in this case, working on Elizabeth's wedding dress.

The two main characters Ann Hughes, an English girl, and Miriam Dassin, a French immigrant who survived Nazi France, were embroiderers who worked on the wedding dress in 1947. In Toronto in 2016 Heather Mackenzie discovers in a box left to her by her grandmother some embroideries that matched those on Queen Elizabeth's wedding gown. Heather also finds an old photo of her grandmother with the now famous artist Dassin. She travels to London to learn more about her grandmother's past. The story alternates between the 1947 plot and the 2016 plot.

The story had a slow start. Once the characters began working on creating Elizabeth's dress, the book became exciting. The seamstresses and embroiderers were under great pressure to keep the dress's design a secret. Some were used by reporters masquerading as boyfriends in attempts at getting inside information on the gown. Even the parallel plot became more exciting too.

The two main female characters were quite interesting. They were strong women, unusually strong for the era. Miriam was a French Jew who was sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp in Germany. Within months of her arrival in London she is working on a royal princess's gown.  That is an incredible turnaround for a one year period of time.  Ann has her own rite of passage but since I don't want to give away any more spoilers, I will leave her story out of my review.

Despite the slow start, this was a wonderful story. The reader could feel the emotional drain of WWII on England before the announcement of Elizabeth's engagement. Her happy announcement catapulted the nation out of its feelings of depression into joy. Perhaps any happy event would have done the trick but it was Elizabeth who got the job done. This begs the question whether her connection with her subjects was strong from this time forward because people remember how they felt during the time of her wedding.

At the conclusion of the story the author interviewed Betty Foster who was one of the four seamstresses who created Elizabeth's gown.  This interview gave me goosebumps as it validated the story I just read.

4 out of 5 stars! 

Book of the Month: April

My favorite book for the month of April is Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley. Kid Gloves is a graphic novel detailing the author's attempts to get pregnant and carry a child to full term.

I am surprised that for 2 months in a row my favorite book was a graphic novel. It just shows how good these adult graphic novels can be. Kid Gloves is Knisley's most serious novel to date. It is autobiographical and while I am not maternal in any sense, I felt Knisley's emotions throughout her experience, from miscarriage through miscarriage to a full pregnancy and a delivery that almost killed her.  She showed emotion on every page with her drawings and while she used bright colors I think she was being optimistic by using them.

I enjoyed the book enough to buy it after taking it out of the library. I cannot recommend it to you more highly.

The Malta Exchange

I haven't read a Steve Berry book in a few years because I got tired of political and spy novels. His books have always been more treasure hunts than any other mystery sub-genre so I thought I would give Berry another try.

In the Malta Exchange former Magellan Billet member Cotton Malone has been hired by the British to locate a satchel of letters written by Winston Churchill to Benito Mussolini during WWII. However, as soon as he finds them in Lake Como, Italy, Malone is knocked unconscious and the satchel is gone when he regains consciousness. Meanwhile, Roman Catholic Cardinal Kastor Gallo is on the Island of Malta trying to find the Nostra Trinita, a secret document of the Knights of Malta that could propel him to the papacy if he finds it. The Secreti, a secret section of the Knights, Malone and the Billet's Luke Daniels all work against each other to find it first. With a papal conclave due to begin in days there is urgency.

History is supreme here. The reader learns about Mussolini's last days and the aftermath of his killing. Churchill's reasons for writing him, a British secret for decades, is revealed. In addition, the entire history of the Knights of Malta is given, from their formation to the present. This is a rich history lesson. I learned much here and had fun reading about the Knights. The inner workings of the Catholic Church is also on display here.

What was interesting to me was how much writing was spent on individual church member inner motives.  The author explores how several characters became the way they were from their childhood. I don't recall reading anything like that before in a Berry novel.  As for Cardinal Gallo, he was a thief and liar since he was in a church orphanage but his behavior was never challenged because the Mother Superior wanted to see how far he would go with his treachery. When he declared an intent to become a priest it was too late for her to take action. However, being a liar and a thief helped him fit in when he ascended to jobs inside the Vatican.

The Malta Exchange was an entertaining read. The pace was fast and the plot action packed. The characters from the Knights and the Catholic church were interesting. The usual Magellan Billet characters were not as compelling which is unfortunate as the Berry novels are a series.  Now I am wondering what Steve Berry books I missed reading that need to be placed on the TBR list.

5 out of 5 stars!

Harvest of Secrets

Harvest of Secrets is the 9th Wine Country Mystery featuring amateur sleuth Lucie Montgomery.  Lucie is a physically disabled vineyard owner in Virginia, owning Montgomery Estate Vineyard.  This is a cozy mystery series written by Ellen Crosby.

The story opens with Lucie recieving a message from one of her employees that he has found a human skull inside  a shed on her property.  She hurries over to look into it and then calls the sheriff for an investigation. A few days later a former neighbor returns to Virginia from France, Jean-Claude de Merignac. The Merignacs are a powerful winemaking family in both France and Virginia but they have been friends with Lucie's family for generations. Jean-Claude is a womanizer with a past history with many woman in Virginia. When he is found dead, there are plenty of suspects.

The book alternates between Lucie's investigation into the identity of the person whose skull was found in her shed and the local police investigation into Jean-Claude's murder.

While a huge suspension of belief is usually necessary with a cozy mystery, Harvest of Secrets was pretty believable. Lucie immediately thinks the skull belongs to a family member since the family cemetery, dating back to the 1700s, is located near the shed. After a DNA test proves her to be right this storyline just gets more interesting as it sheds light on an old secret in her family. Jean-Claude's murder investigation is not too exciting but the identity of the family member and why she was killed was a gripping story.  In fact, I think the whole Jean-Claude plot could have been eliminated. The other storyline was interesting enough to carry this book.

You should read this one! 4 out of 5 stars.

The Island of Sea Women

Lisa See's latest book was just published in March, 2019. The story takes place on a Korean island called Jeju and is about two women who are haenyeo, female divers for food. Young-sook and Mi-ja have been best friends since early childhood. Mi-ja is the orphan daughter of a Japanese collaborator and Young-sook is the daughter of the leader of the haenyeo collective. The story covers a period of time from the 1930s through the end of the Korean War with a subplot from 2008.

The haenyeo culture is unique as the women are in charge of providing the family finances and the men stay home and care for the children. Their job of harvesting fish from the sea for sale or to feed their families can be unsafe. One haenyeo in the story was almost killed by an octopus and Young-sook's mother died while helping her gather her first abalone. The women continue this work because they feel freedom from the cares of the world when they are underwater.

Our two heroines remain close friends until they marry and discover their husbands have different political views. They are also separated by living in different villages but their distance is primarily created by their husbands being on opposite political sides of Japanese colonialism in Korea and the Korean War. Each woman takes her husband's side and one betrays another during a period known in history as the Jeju Uprising. Between 14,000 and 30,000 people were murdered by American controlled South Korean government officials in 1948 and 1949. The author wove this event, covered up for decades by the South Korean government, into the story.  Most of the people killed were men as Young-sook remarks in the story that she lived on the Island of Widows.

This story reminded me of Mary Lynn Bracht's White Chrysanthemum which I read last year. It, too, was about a family of haenyeo on Jeju Island during World War II.  However, the See book reads rather slowly and had less poignancy than her books usually have. The characters were not as compelling as those in White Chrysanthemum. It is hard not to compare the two books as they are both about the haenyeo during the World War II era on Jeju Island and they were published one year apart. They are quite similar but White Chrysanthemum is a more interesting read and it was my top book for 2018.

I was surprised by the slow pace. A Lisa See book usually has a good pace. The plot was good and it could have been an exciting read. It wasn't. The book was OK, just not up to par with all of the author's earlier books. My expectations may have been unfairly high due to the similarities with Chrysanthemum but it was hard not to compare the books. While the characters in The Island of Sea Women were compelling, I felt that Young-sook was really the only character that made you want to keep reading. In a book that is supposed to be about the relationship between two women, having one woman not that strong of a character was a problem for me.

I am still glad that I read this book. I never want to pass up a Lisa See novel. It just wasn't the blockbuster I was expecting.

3 out of 5 stars.

Kid Gloves

Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos is Lucy Knisley's 6th graphic novel. It details her experience trying to conceive a child, her eventual pregnancy and the life threatening delivery of her baby. It has been written with low key humor. Kid Gloves was published in February, 2019.

Lucy begins this graphic memoir with her first introduction to contraceptives when she was a teenager.  She volunteered for Planned Parenthood's Peer-to-Peer Educator Program. She was trained about sexual health and contraceptives and then informed her classmates about what she learned and passed out condoms and pamphlets. She quickly notes that when she became an adult she realized how little information she received. Her attempts to use a diaphragm, the pill and an IUD had terrible side effects which required her to have surgery.

After she and her husband decided to have a child they thought conceiving would be easy. It was. However, Lucy had several miscarriages and found out one in four pregnancies is miscarried. She wondered why the Planned Parenthood classes didn't give this information.

She fell into grief after each miscarriage and could not work. Her female friends and acquaintances all told  her every old wives tale about pregnancy and miscarriage which she dutifully covered in a section called Miscarriage Myths.

Finally Lucy had a successful pregnancy that was fraught with nausea, insomnia and undiagnosed eclampsia which resulted in an emergency Caesarean and 2 days of unconsciousness. However, she got the baby she wanted. Still, she is wondering why she was not taught about all of these possibilities of pregnancy when she was a teenager.

I thought the author chose a clever theme, sex education, for her story.  Using her high school sex ed classes through Planned Parenthood was a brilliant backdrop for her own experience. In addition, while this story was about a serious topic it was told with humor. The humor was low key probably because of the subject matter. Also, the reader could feel the emotions of the author through each stage of her pregnancy experience. The emotions were both written and drawn on her many  facial expressions and those of her husband.

I learned a few things too.  I did not know that one in four pregnancies are miscarried. The author discusses many misconceptions about the entire maternity process that I would recommend the book to a newly pregnant woman. There is much to learn here if you didn't have a great sex education as a youth.

The artwork was done in line drawings primarily in a comic strip format. Bright colors are used throughout the book except for the two day period of time when the author was unconscious after the delivery of her baby. Here, she uses black and white drawings and the writing is from the point of view of her husband.

Kid Gloves was a quick read. I loved it and read it again the day after I finished it. It is informative but in a funny way. I love the use of bright colors and perhaps they bring some lightness to this serious book. I borrowed this book from my public library but feel that it belongs in my graphic novel collection. I will probably buy it.

5 out of 5 stars!

The Gondola Maker

The Gondola Maker is the first book in Laura Morelli's Venetian Artisan series. It features a fictional young gondola maker named Luca Vianello who is supposed to inherit his family's esteemed gondola making business.  His parents want him to marry a girl from the glassblowing guild in order to strengthen their political ties in Venice. After a fight with his father over the poor treatment of his mother, the boatyard accidentally catches fire and is destroyed. Luca flees. He fears being charged criminally as well as being unsure about whether his family survived the fire.

Knowing he needs a job in order to eat, Luca hires himself out to the owner of one of the largest ferry stations in Venice. His job is to load and unload boxes of merchandise for customers. It is a menial job compared to the artistry he was used to performing at home. Soon after his hire, Luca gains the attention of a master painter named  Trevisan and Master Trevisan hires him to restore an old gondola that he inherited from his father. Luca works hard on the gondola so that he can offer a ride to a girl he has met at Master Trevisan's studio. However, the girl like many others Trevisan has painted will be sexually assaulted by the man who purchased her painting, with her father pocketing alot of money. The girl will have to go into a convent though, as she will no longer be marriageable.

The Gondola Maker shows the reader the level of craftsmanship that is required to construct a top quality gondola.  You also learn about the life of a 16th century Venetian, particularly the gondoliers with their secret codes for maneuvering the canals of Venice and their custom of making a few extra bucks with their dishonest practices. The author's knowledge of the era is evident. She paints a realistic picture of 16th century Venice with women being treated as non-entities, extravagant palaces for the rich and ordering into slavery any citizen who violates the laws.

While I enjoyed the book I have to say the second book in the series is better. The Painter's Apprentice was an exquisite tale of a female apprentice of Master Trevisan. Her main problem is preventing the boatman from telling everyone her secret. These gondoliers just can't be trusted but they sure are entertaining!

Forthcoming April Reviews

I have a stack of books from the library and from Amazon that I am ready to read and review:

An Island of Sea Women: Lisa See
The Malta Exchange: Steve Berry
The Enemies of Versailles: Sally Christie
The Gondola Maker: Laura Morelli
Peace Child: Don Richardson
Harvest of  Secrets: Ellen Crosby

I am on a wait list for Jennifer Robson's The Gown and expect that I will get it around the end of April. The Steve Berry book was reserved at the library in hardcover but I received an audio version of the book instead. I am not sure I will be able to handle that format. We shall see. In addition, I just bought Ken Follett's A Column of Fire but it's 916 pages will have to wait for another month.

April will be a month of exciting reading!